There's something I've always wondered:
Taking responsibility for your own actions is commonly said to be a sign of maturity.
America (as an entity) seems to be unwilling to accept any responsibility for the actions of terrorism, despite the fact that most clear-headed pundits see a pretty strong cause-and-effect relationship between American foreign policy and the rise of terrorism. Cf. George W. Bush: "They hate our freedoms" [link] Also cf. the Defense Science Board: "Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies." [link]
America is also often referred to as a young country.
So is there any hope that this young and immature country will actually grow up and accept some responsibility for not only training and arming terrorists, but also creating policies that cause people to hate them?
No disrespect intended to the millions of Americans who actually have a goddamn clue.
As an aside to the "hate our freedom" nonsense, I found this in a review of a comedy album by David Cross:
[Cross] even seemed to have a better handle on the mindset of Osama bin Laden than the Bush administration: "If the terrorists hated freedom, then the Netherlands would be fucking dust." Just a few months later, bin Laden released one of his tapes (not on Sub Pop), saying, "Bush has told you that we do not like freedom. Then why didn't we hit Sweden?" Whoa.
Admittedly the (American) writer of the review seems to have confused the Netherlands (containing Holland) with Sweden (not containing Holland).
Posted by pearce at August 11, 2006 5:47 PM